I'm wearing big girl panties in 2013

Hello. Here I am arriving in 2013. I got here eventually. A little late but ready to create my New Year. I've got my big girl panties on.

A Happy New Year to you and yours. Much love to you all.

"This year isn't going to be just like every other year. This year is a new year. It may have elements of other years. Yet it is unique. We may try to make it the same in our minds and not be open to the new opportunitieses presented to us. It's up to us. Here's hoping for a New Year."

-  quote comes from my new desk calendar

#reverb12 and #adventwindows have really helped me to process and reflect on 2012 and to put that year in it's place! My word for 2012 was ALIVE. When I chose that word I did not know of course, what lay in store for us. ALIVE was me wanting to dive into life as I never had before. Then came the unexpected twists and turns of fate, and alive was sometimes not some place I wanted to be. I slept through a lot of it. Then when the worst was over, and we had another wave of misfortune, and then when life gave us some respite, I was awake every night and seemed to be at the mercy of my mind! Which wasn't very merciful at all!

Alive? This was the year I was meant to LIVE ALIVE! Hey what happened 2012?

Now on reflection, I feel it was exactly the perfect word for 2012.

ALIVE. It anchored me when things felt as low as I could ever have imagined them to feel.

ALIVE. It brought me to a place of gratitude.

ALIVE. It brought me to a place of peace.

ALIVE. It offers me a place of acceptance. This is where I start 2013.

During #adventwindows and #Reverb12 I found this poem. It was on the day I pulled out the word "Choose" - Day 13.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

Mary Oliver

Every year we have been witness

to it: how the

world decends

into a rich mash, in order that

it may resume.

And therefore who would cry out

to the petals on the ground

to stay,

knowing as we must

how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?

I don't say

it's easy, but

what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world

be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough, 

this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,

and the ponds be cold and black,

and the sweets of the year be doomed.

The day before I had found this glorious poem ,when thinking about the word "Give". Along with the word came this quote:

"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well."   -Voltaire

 I decided then that my word for the year would be "Choose" - I ruminated on it for the rest of December and then completed the Word of the Year discovery tool from Christine Kane, found again via Kat at "I saw you dancing."

On the way to finding my word for 2013, I also visited "Learn", "Nourish", "Radiate", "Listen", "Curious", "Hope(in action)", "Expand", "Touch", "Join" - but I kept coming back to "CREATE". Yes that's right. Not Choose - CREATE!

"Create what you most need to find." 

- Sabrina Ward Harrison

I loved all of the words I visited, especially "Listen", "Learn", "Touch" and "Curious". They can all bring me so many gifts this coming year. However I wanted my word to place the power and responsibility squarely on me. I wanted my word for 2013 to be a word of arrival and of power, whilst knowing that I needed to let go and accept. 

CREATE, brings me freedom and peace. It brings me laughter and joy. I create my own reality. I am the Creator of NOW.

CREATE, allows me to listen, learn, touch, be curious, write, make, choose. It requires me to stay open.

CREATE, gives me the choice to expand effort and time where I choose; on relationships, on community, on self-care, on spirituality, on home and family. I can create ways to nourish myself and others.

CREATE, helps me to put my hope into meaningful action.

CREATE, gives me the tools I need to make a new story about the past, the present and the future. I am the artist, the author, the creator.

CREATE, gives me choices. I can choose to work too hard and to be swept along. Or I can choose to work with more focus, less resentment and to invest more time and effort into the things I love to do. I can create more of a work/life balance.

CREATE, needs me to be compassionate. Create is not a hard task master, it needs me to be my own compassionate friend; however it also needs me to practice and learn. Letting myself off the hook is ok, but not all of the time! 

Here are two more reminders for me today as I launch into Creating 2013, and reluctantly leave this Christmas and New Year's period behind. I am back to the day job tomorrow so need to be armed with my CREATE shield and magic wand. I'm taking Christmas with me. Big girl pants might help too I thought.

Have you chosen your word yet? Or are you making resolutions? Whatever is happening for you I wish you a creative and joyful 2013, one that is a little kinder to us all, and to the world.

Oh and thank you. There is so much love and wisdom out there in blogland.

#Reverb day 4 and December Journaling Project.

Prompt Number 4: What's the one thing you want to take with you into 2012?

Well. As you might know I find it hard just to name one thing, but I will try very hard to just name one.....if I must choose, then it has to be artsy-crafty experiments, explorations and messing around with all of the bits and pieces.

Though Kat's blog(see link above), I discovered this version of reverb11. Just click to have a look at Hope's beautiful and imaginative "Hybrid" journal reverb project - it's just breathtaking.

My own beginner's attempt, slotted in(so far) each night when I get home from work, is below(I'm back with access to photos...yay!). I very much will be taking such frivolity into 2012. This year has been one where I have actively made time to play, to create and to explore different arts and crafts. The part of myself that tells me that I "do not have time", or that "this is not useful", is silenced forever, as each night I find new energy and I stay up later than I have done for a long time. If I yawn and feel sleepy in the morning, it's not the end of the world. I feel energised this December.

Time for creating and reflecting, is precious!

Day 1 Prompt - Did you try anything new in 2011?

The back of the cover for Day 1 - with some quotes about life being a scared adventure. On the right is the journal page. While thinking about this question I suddenly saw just how everything, everyday is often like a new experience for me - a blue sky, or the light on a leaf.....a rainstorm...the wonder of it all.

Day 1 journaling some more - I wrote about all of the new things I had done this year, some of which I have written about here on the blog. It helped me realise just how full my life really is - suddenly feeling very energised. Not quite finished yet hence the blank frames.

Day 2 - What was your most memorable gathering of 2011? - I included words from what I have learnt this year about being with and my relationships with others.

More of Day 2 - included a poem by Tara Sophia Mohr that I posted on my blog in June. I wrote about the reunion with my China buddies, and times I have spent with family this year. Including (still to come) Christmas Day 2011.

Day 3 Cover - What Storm Did You Weather in 2011?

Some thoughts about the internal storms and obstacles from this year.

The back page of Day 3 and some writing about the "storm" that hit us in August and about how each day we take another step towards healing.

Part of the reason that I am taking this forward, is that art is a way for me to find more depth to my experiences, in myself, and to make sense of the world and my feelings. For so long I have been so scattered and have been greedy about life, wanting to do everything and not really settling down and making a commitment. I suppose some of that was fear, my Mother died so young at only forty, so maybe subconsciously I was just trying to cram in as much as possible. Or maybe I was just too scared to get attached or make an investment.

Ok, to some extent, I am one of those people who has a very wide range of interests, and in addition is easily distracted and excited by the next shiny object....but I really need to steady myself and to have some focus and some commitment as I go forward into 2012. To make a commitment to being who I already am, and to what is already in my life.....instead of always hankering after something else, or looking back with regret to things I have lost, or never, ever being enough. Art journaling and creative pursuits give me the opportunity to savour, and to appreciate the enoughness of my life, and the wonder and inspiration of the world.

I've just got to share this - a joyful poem found in my in-box yesterday!

I never believed in death, for I never saw it.

I saw only that this became that.

The petals fell away, and the thing became a stem,

and the floor became scattered in pink.

Containers break. Eras end.

Thing-ness only a stopping ground,

a pause at the train station, followed by moving on.

You were never yourself, and I was never I.

Everything cresting and falling,

giving way, again, to the ocean.

We need more words like arise and fewer like die.

When you know you are a just a disco party

of cells that came together for a time,

you’ll live like the blazing sphere you are,

and dance with the spheres around you.

You won’t ask of them, or tax them, or want them to be anything.

You’ll be boogieing in the sun, and look

over your shoulder, breathless, to say

Quick! It’s only for a moment that we are this.
Let’s feel the sting when we land from a raucous jump.
Let’s watch our knees glisten.
Let’s wait here, as night covers our skin.
Let’s watch our hands darken.

Let’s cry, at the realness of it, and the dreamness of it.
Let’s marvel at it.

-Tara Sophia Mohr

Blue Skies and Glitter Ball - September 2010

Changing the way we look at a girl - The Girl Effect

For much of my adult life, I've been thinking about women's lives; about girl's lives. I went to an all woman college and then took a course in Women's Studies at University. Unconsciously it was a part of my breaking away from some of my own family and class culture, and the cycles that were evident there. Or rather of trying to. Then I wandered down another path and lost my way for a while. Without sitting down and really holding myself to account(ie., not being too hard on myself because that's really not helpful), and just off the top of my head, I am asking myself today - what exactly have you done, given all this thinking, reading and studying? What difference have I made?

I've only just found The Girl Effect through Tara Sophia Mohr who had started a blogging campaign that was being shared on Twitter. Thanks to this I found out about The Girl Effect and also found that there are lots of wonderful women and men out there all working to help bring this about. You too. Though you may not have realised it. So, like me, be inspired.  Go and read and learn and share about The Girl Effect.

It's International Children's Day today, so just do those three things, read, learn, share and the effect will spread.

As it says on the Girl Effect website....

THE GIRL EFFECT IS ABOUT GIRLS. AND BOYS. AND MOMS AND DADS AND VILLAGES AND TOWNS AND COUNTRIES.

If you just do these three things, then, like me you might be inspired enough to do something.

You might just feel powerful enough.

This first video I've chosen to post today, is two years old, but I've never seen it. I think about children's lives around the world often, and I sigh and I rage and I cry and I feel helpless and powerless. Sometimes I act.  Children caught up in war. Children in poverty. The same things keep on happening to girls today that have been happening for centuries. In the developing world and right here in the West. It all seems so overwhelming! Today I learn just how much more I could do.

Girls in poverty here make the "wrong choices" for the same old reasons. They continue to get hit and beaten. They truant from school or achieve less than their potential. Their expectations of the future can be very low. There are barriers but there is information and help for them to break free. It is still not that simple!

Girls living in poverty far away are still worth less to a family than a boy. They are forced to live a woman's life when they are still a child. They are denied an education. They are beaten, abused and exploited. The barriers to breaking free are so much greater for them than they are in the West. If it is not simple for girls here what is it like for girls across the globe? Where does a girl get help? How can she make a change? And what does this mean for her and for the world?

It is time the word was spread about how to make a change, how to change the way we look at a girl.

I dare you.



Double dare me.

Look at the power of the girl effect. All of these fabulous women. All of these fabulous human beings. And when you have had a good , long look, just like me, take action. Just one. Pass it on. Then another. And another. And keep on acting. Near or far. Small or a little bit bigger.

Some ways to take action:

1. Tweet. Share on Facebook. Blog about it.

2. Read , learn, share. Care, connect and be inspired.

3. Donate to The Girl Effect.

4. Join Kiva. and help someone with a loan.

5. Donate to Warchild  or just go and read about some of the work that is being done in The Congo. Eastern Congo is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a girl or young woman. The Goma project is helping former girl soldiers or girls displaced from their homes and forced into prostitution.

6. Sponsor a girl.

Just a little bit more time, one more watch - Addis can tell you so much better than I can about the power of The Girl Effect.